The State of the Birds

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Western grebes dance across the water in Klamath Falls' Moore Park. The photo, by Jerry C. Pogue of Ashland, was submitted for the 2008 Oregon Outdoors bird photo contest.Jerry C. Pogue

When the environmental crisis exploded into American consciousness, it was heralded by birdsong, or rather the lack of it. Rachel Carson's "Silent Spring" woke people to the environmental challenges of the modern age. The result: birdsong was something Americans did not want to do without.

A new report again places birds as bellwethers of the nation's ecological health. Published by the Department of Interior in March, "The State of the Birds" gathers information from government agencies, academia and nonprofit agencies to describe bird populations in the country's different habitats.

Far from being a dry analysis, the colorful, 35-page report clearly depicts the condition of birds in the nation's grasslands, shorelines, arid lands, forests and cities. Easy to read and available online (www.stateofthebirds.org), it bridges the gap between what science has discovered and what voters and policy makers need to understand about the environment. Like "Silent Spring," the report offers bad news that its authors say deserves attention.

"(It's) a scary picture, but there's optimism. Birds are resilient, as are our ecosystems," says John Alexander, director of the Klamath Bird Observatory.

The information in the report is "not news to the professionals and researchers in the field," says Stewart Janes, environmental science professor at Southern Oregon University. He says he's glad to see it used by policy makers and hopes the document demonstrates to land managers "what they do on the land has consequences."

"It's simple and straightforward without a lot of detail," says Janes. "Birds are declining. We've done a great job of preventing extinction, but not as well with maintaining healthy populations."

Ornithologist Barbara Massey, co-author with Dennis Vroman of "Guide to the Birds of the Rogue Valley," concurs. She's happy to see the slow recovery of endangered California Least Tern, which she studied in the 1970s. They've grown from 600 pairs to about 5,000 pairs, but "they should be uncountable," she says. Not that she's complaining. "Even keeping a population stable is a very hard job."

The Endangered Species Act gets credit, according to these professionals. Of the 74 birds listed as endangered, 30 increased in number and 44 remained stable, says Massey.

The iconic whooping crane climbed from 16 birds to 540. The California condor, once limited to 22 birds, now numbers 330.

Give bird hunters some of the credit, says Janes. Federal protection for waterfowl and taxes on guns and ammunition have done an enormous job in helping bird numbers rebound, he says.

"Hunters have done more bird conservation than birders because of that income." In addition, organizations like Ducks Unlimited have helped buy potholes — small ponds in the Midwest that are important habitat for resident and migratory birds in the center of the nation.

But the news is not all good. The Greater Prairie Chicken, a native of the Midwest grasslands with an enviable neck display, numbered over 1 million 100 years ago but has decreased to 72 birds today. Many Hawaiian birds, lovely as the island's flowers, are likely extinct. Climate change, scientifically unambiguous but notoriously unpredictable, is threatening further calamity, especially here in the Rogue Basin, according to Janes.

"We have only the vaguest handle on what to expect," he says. "The most important lesson is to be humble."

Shorebirds are surely endangered because estuaries and coastlines are expected to change, as will food species. But another threatened habitat is closer to home, says Massey — the valley's highest altitudes. The habitat above 5,000 feet supports only a few overwintering birds, but the population quadruples during the summer nesting season. With rising temperatures, habitats will move up the mountains, or move further north.

"The high country has no place to go," says Massey. "The birds that come to breed are going to be in real trouble, including many birds from the valley floor that go up there."

People can't just watch and hope that the adaptability of each species will allow them to succeed. Climate change is expected to happen too rapidly, says Janes.

Land managers need to consider the health of the birds when assessing their efficacy, says Alexander. Using a holistic-systems approach — with birds as indicators of the success of different techniques — KBO is attempting to refine fire-management practices. It takes the birds-as-indicators approach of the general report into a measurement of the success of specific programs.

"(Birds) are a measure of how well those ecological systems are doing," he says. "It's a pretty stable and telling index."

Everyday people can help. Birders of every level can record sightings on Klamath-Siskiyou ebird (www.ebird.org/klamath-siskiyou), which contributes to the national jigsaw puzzle of bird health.

"Citizen-science rocks," says Alexander, repeating what may become a mantra for environmental experts. Other ways to participate include the breeding-bird survey and the Christmas bird count, national events with local sites, he says.

Massey says she would like to see cats kept indoors. "People don't seem to be at all aware that domestic cats are the biggest menace to birds in urban settings," she says.

According to the report, domestic and feral cats kill hundreds of millions of birds each year and with other non-native predators have the greatest single impact on bird populations.

A measure of the unanimity of scientific opinion on "The State of the Birds" is that the report, begun in the last year of the Bush administration, was expedited by President Obama's secretary of the Interior, Ken Salazar, and published in less than two years, says Alexander.

Every year will bring a focused report, and climate change is the topic currently being worked on, he says. All the news is good, if we heed it.

"We can turn this around," says Alexander.

Master gardener Althea Godfrey is gardening editor for HomeLife magazine. Reach her at writealthea@charter.net.

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